Christopher Brown will be coming to speak at the Museum Conversations Seminar on Wednesday, February 13, 2013. His talk is entitled “The New Ashmolean.”

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is Britain’s oldest public museum, and possibly the oldest museum in the world. In November 2009, it reopened following a 9-month period of closure and a £61 million redevelopment. In his talk, Christopher Brown will discuss the transformative project that has created a new 100,000 square foot building behind the famous 19th-century Cockerell façade. The new building, designed by Rick Mather Architects, houses 39 new galleries, including four for temporary exhibitions; a dedicated Education Centre; state-of-the-art conservation studios; and the City’s first roof-top restaurant. Since it opened, the new Ashmolean has won a host of major awards and has received more than 1.2 million visitors.

Christopher Brown is Director of the Ashmolean Museum and Fellow of Worcester College at the University of Oxford. Before taking his current position, Brown served as Assistant Keeper, Deputy Keeper, and Chief Curator at the National Gallery in London. He received his B.A. in Modern History at the University of Oxford and his Ph.D. at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Brown’s primary area of specialization is 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings. His publications include Van Dyck, 1599-1641 (London: Royal Academy, 1999); Utrecht Painters of the Dutch Golden Age (London: National Gallery Publications, 1997); Rubens’s Landscapes (London: National Gallery Publications, 1996); Van Dyck Drawings (New York: Abrams, 1991); Flemish Paintings (London: National Gallery Publications, 1987); Dutch Landscape: The Early Years, Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590-1650 (London: National Gallery Publications, 1986); Scenes of Everyday Life: Dutch Genre Painting of the Seventeenth Century (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984); Van Dyck (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Carel Fabritius: Complete Edition with a Catalogue Raisonné (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981).